


not another sacrifice

by jennycaakes



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 02:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3470795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennycaakes/pseuds/jennycaakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke refuses to let anyone else die for her. Not even Bellamy is worth the risk. So she leaves in the middle of the night to become the inside man at Mount Weather, forcing Bellamy to run things with Lexa. He isn't sure it's worth the risk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not another sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> Requested to me on Tumblr, got a little longer than anticipated. Hope you like it!

There was no way that Clarke was going to send Bellamy to be an inside man. The second she told him that he protested, yelled at her so loudly that others turned away in fear. “It isn’t an option,” Clarke told him. “And it doesn’t make sense. I know Mount Weather better than any of these people, especially better than you.”

“You can’t go back there, Clarke,” he had growled. His eyes were dark, part anger and part panic. “You know what they’re capable of!”

“Which is why I have to be the one to go.” Bellamy continued to shake his head at her, explaining to her again and again that if anyone should go in it should be him, but Clarke stayed mostly silent. She let his angry words roll over her, numb to her ears. “Bellamy stop,” she silenced him. Of course he fell quiet at once, rubbing his forehead to calm himself. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Clarke was done letting other people risk their lives for her. Finn had killed and died in her name. Anya was shot because she had helped Clarke get back to camp. Bellamy was not going to lose his life for her. She _refused_. So in the middle of the night she packed her things, scribbled out a note to whoever cared, and woke Lincoln. They left camp together and Clarke didn’t look back.

When Bellamy woke the next morning it was to Raven storming into his tent. “She’s gone,” Raven told him, holding up the note, and Bellamy tried to ignore the way his heart shattered in his chest. He sat up in a rush but Raven blocked his way out of the tent. “Stop it,” Raven snapped at him. “You have to have faith in her, Bellamy. Clarke can do this.” He paced his tent and tried to breathe. “She’d have faith in you.”

“This is not an argument I’m having,” he snapped back.

Days before Clarke had told him it wasn’t worth the risk. That his own life wasn’t worth the risk into Mount Weather and now she was taking that chance all on her own. His first instinct was to run after her, but he wasn’t the best tracker and he knew he wouldn’t reach Clarke in time. So he did what he had to do, hanging back in the radio room with Raven and waiting for Clarke to call home.

**

Clarke tried to pass for a Grounder. Lincoln helped her deck herself out in the clothing and she felt more powerful than before. But of course it didn’t work. Despite the mud in her blonde hair, the dirt on her skin, Lincoln caved and let Clarke be taken along with the other Grounders. He was too weak, his body calling for the drug. Clarke had no option to fight back, she was too small.

They lugged her into the quarantine area. Chained her up. Sprayed her skin. Screams ripped up her throat, tears burned her eyes. She woke up in a cage, her head throbbing and her body clean. She pushed at the bars, shook them in a panic. Clarke turned her head and found Monty in the cage beside her.

“Clarke?” he whispered. His voice was raw, his body bruised. “What—what are you doing here? I thought you were dead?”

Harper spoke next from the cage beside him. “She _is_ dead,” Harper cried. “We all are.”

**

“You have to stop pacing, Bellamy,” Raven grumbled.

Earlier in the day Octavia helped capture a Mountain Man. His heard glowed with pride, his only family working hard to make a name for herself here on Earth. But that man hasn’t spoken, despite the fact that Abby saved his life. She screamed at Bellamy then, “This is your fault!” His body absorbed her angry words, burning his veins. “It’s your fault that Clarke’s gone!”

Bellamy directed his gaze to the man in the containment lock. “It’s not my fault he won’t talk,” he grit out. Every part of him was screaming to open the door, to let the man’s skin bubble and burn. “I’m working on it, Abby.”

“Not hard enough,” she snapped.

So now he was pacing, waiting for the radio to fizzle and crack with Clarke’s voice. Lincoln hadn’t returned yet and with each minute Bellamy was more and more worried that he wouldn’t. “This is fucked up,” Bellamy murmured as he moved. “Clarke should be here. She’s the one who plans things, not me. I can’t _do_ this.”

“Yes you can,” Raven returned. She fidgeted with the sonic device that was used to control the Reapers and looked at him over her shoulder. “But I’m not going to sit here and be your personal cheerleader, Bellamy, so shut the fuck up and get to work. Arrange a meeting with Lexa. Take in other people’s opinion. You know how to do this.”

“It’s _pointless_ if Clarke doesn’t get inside!” he shot back. “You know that just as well as I do!”

“Don’t yell at me because you’re scared!” Raven hissed, turning in her chair. “Do your job! I’m doing mine!”

Bellamy opened his mouth to scream in frustration but they both heard it. The crackle. “This is Clarke Griffin for Camp Jaha. Do you read?” Raven and Bellamy’s eyes held one another before she grabbed the radio. He sprinted over to the table as she handed it to him. “This is—”

“Clarke?” Bellamy asked.

**

Doctor Tsing had never been happier to see she had another patient, and was even more thrilled that it was _Clarke Griffin_. “The one that got away,” Tsing laughed as she had Clarke strapped down. Resistance was futile but she tried, struggling against the constraints on her wrists and ankles. She heard the drill before she felt it.

But she felt it.

When she came to again Clarke was back in the cage. Her hip was burning, her eyes were wet. Monty reached through the holes in the cage and Clarke’s fingers brushed his. “It gets numb after a while,” he told her quietly. Clarke moved, pressing her forehead to his hand. “Curl on your side,” Monty whispered. “Away from the pain. It’ll get easier.”

Clarke wanted to be angry. She wanted to feel something other than the pain. But sadness overwhelmed her and tears began to leak from her eyes. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen! Clarke cried until she fell asleep.

It had to be more than good timing. Fate had its hand in this. A few hours later Jasper came into the testing room, demanding his friends be let go. The surprise on President Wallace’s face when he saw Clarke was visible but he let her go as well. “Go to the dorms,” he told them. “Tell your friends to pack. You’re going home.”

There was hardly any time for hugs. Everyone tried to grab onto Clarke and she smiled the best that she could but she knew there wasn’t any time. Her body was still aching and she had a mission to do. “I need to get to the radio,” she told them quietly. It was already going to be infinitely harder that Mount Weather knew she was here, but Clarke had faith she could to this. “I need to talk to Bellamy.”

“Bellamy’s okay?” Jasper asked, and Clarke nodded. He found Maya amongst the crowd and she and Clarke had a stiff reunion. “Maya can take you,” he insisted, but Clarke hesitated. “She’ll keep you concealed and help your hip.”

Clarke didn’t have a choice not to trust her.

They made it outside of the dorms _minutes_ before the doors were shut and locked. Clarke’s mind went into overdrive as she and Maya snuck down the hall as fast as they could for someone who’d just been operated on. Heavy footsteps and quick turns. She couldn’t breathe by the time they reached the radio.

Her hands were shaking. “This is Clarke Griffin for Camp Jaha,” she forced out. “Do you read?” Clarke turned to look at Maya who was also panting from the run. There was no response. Clarke sniffed and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “This is—”

“Clarke?”

The sound of Bellamy’s voice froze her. “Bellamy?” she whispered back.

“Are you okay? Why’d you take so long? I’ve been worried out of my fucking mind!” Clarke let out a deep breath and her face exploded with a smile. “Clarke? What’s happening?”

“Sorry, I’m fine,” she told him. Clarke allowed his voice to fight away the pain of the surgery, to give her new hope. “I’m fine, Bellamy.”

“Why’d you take so long?” he asked again.

“Got a little held up.” He sighed in frustration on the other end. “I’m okay, Bellamy,” Clarke told him. “I swear.” There was a pause as he savored the sound of her voice as well. “We have to hurry, though. They’re already operating. They’re taking bone marrow, too much too fast. It’s going to kill everyone if we don’t hurry.” Clarke hesitated. “Even me.”

“They know you’re there?” he snapped. “Clarke!”

“Bellamy,” she cut him off. “You need to get to work. Help Raven and Lexa in any way that you can.” Maya made a noise and Clarke looked down the hall. “We’re going to get this radio mobile but I can’t talk for long.”

“Clarke,” his voice was a lot softer now. “I didn’t mean—” Bellamy sighed. “I’m glad you’re okay.” Clarke smiled again, always loving Bellamy’s praise no matter how small it might be. “I believed in you.”

Her voice wavered, “Thank you.”

**

Working with Lexa was a struggle. She didn’t like Bellamy very much, her eyes dark whenever they had to speak and her words short. He snapped at her one day when Clarke was late to radio in. “My people’s lives are at risk too,” he told her. Lexa paused at the sudden loudness of his voice. “I’m doing _everything_ I can to make this work! You have to meet me half way!”

“We can’t rush this battle, Bellamy,” Lexa responded, her voice even. “Clarke will lower the acid fog as she promised. And then we can begin. I know you understand that.” He dragged his hands through his hair and paced, something he only really started doing the morning he woke up and Clarke left. It wasn’t in his nature to be this angry, this rushed. “Maybe _you_ should have gone instead,” Lexa murmured.

He couldn’t respond to her then, marching away from the commander with a scowl on his face.

Clarke finally radioed in that night, apologizing about the delay and explaining that she mobilized the radio. “I heard something today,” Clarke told him. “They’re firing a missile. It’s headed to Tondc.”

**

He and Lexa had another screaming match, mostly out of his own personal fear. Octavia was here somewhere, as well as hundreds of innocent people. “If we evacuate then they’ll know Clarke is not with her friends,” Lexa told him. “They’ll search for her. And kill her.” Lexa’s face was calm. “We both know that’s the last thing you want. And it's the last thing we need if we want the acid fog lowered.”

Bellamy found Octavia and as many other people as he could and fled Tondc. He felt the fire on his back. When he found the sniper in the woods Bellamy strangled him with his bare hands.

**

Bellamy’s relationship with Lexa was always strained. He could tell she didn’t trust him completely, despite convincing him to flee, and he most definitely did not trust her. But she could read him like a book. “You worry for Clarke,” Lexa pointed out. He was in her tent, waiting for the acid fog to be lowered. “Don’t you?”

“We lead together,” Bellamy responded. “I trust her. I can’t do this without her.” He spun to face Lexa who was lounging. “None of us can.”

“That’s not how you care for her.” Bellamy grit his teeth, casting his eyes elsewhere. “You admire her. Respect her. As did I, in the time I knew her. I originally believed she’d be the one staying, and you would be the one leaving. I feel it might have worked better that way.” Bellamy’s eyebrows came together in confusion. “But she’ll get the job done, if she’s as persistent as you say.”

“She is,” he growled. “She will.”

“We’ll see.”

**

“You were right to have faith in her,” Lexa said. They were starting at the flare in the sky, the warm pink against the soft blue. The sign that all was a go. “I know you wished to speed this process up. But now, Bellamy, we can fight. And we can _win_.”

**

It was bloody. And brutal. And long. Bellamy kept his eyes peeled, often searching for Octavia amongst the Grounders but also searching for a head of blonde in the mix. He worried for her immensely, Raven saying she could no longer get in touch through the radio. She suspected it had been compromised but insisted Bellamy not worry. They would get through it, they would find her.

In the end he found Miller first, and it was Miller who’d found Clarke. She’d been shot in the shoulder, lost a lot of blood and was bleeding out in one of the many cave tunnels. Miller had found her in the battle, stayed by her side as she struggled to stay away, but he was too weak to take her anywhere and stayed put as he called for help.

Bellamy threw Clarke over his shoulder and sprinted back to their makeshift camp, demanding she get attention immediately. Abby was dealing with other people so Jackson took care of Clarke, removing the bullet with tweezers and bandaging her shoulder with speed. Bellamy only left to find Octavia, and when he found her talking to the escaped delinquents and watching their first sunset in such a long time, he went straight back to Clarke who was waking up as he arrived.

A sleepy smile filled her face when she saw him. “Hey,” she breathed.

He strode over and grabbed her hand. “Don’t scare me like that again,” he demanded. “Okay?”

“Nice to see you too, Bellamy.” He closed his eyes tightly and squeezed her fingers. “It was worth the risk,” she told him quietly.

“Your life will never be worth the risk,” he murmured back, despite knowing it really _was_. “Not again.” When Bellamy looked back at her Clarke’s eyes had drifted shut, another gentle smile on her face. “Get your rest, Princess. You did good.”

She snorted a little, a light breath of air escaping her. “You did good,” she echoed. Bellamy lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, causing her smile to widen.

They could talk about it in the morning.


End file.
